“Dirigent” refers to genes or proteins which are members of a gene or protein family, respectively, members of which have been identified in many plants. Dirigents have been implicated in resistance to various types of pathogens in a range of different, and sometimes distantly related, plants.
Dirigent proteins confer a broad response to many pathogens in a number of plants species, including for conifers (Ralph et al., Plant Molecular Biology (2006) 60:21-40); cotton (L. Zhu, X. Zhang, L. Tu, F. Zeng, Y. Nie and X. Guo Journal of Plant Pathology. 2007. 89 (1), 41-45); barley (Ralph et al., Plant Molecular Biology, 2006, 60:21-40_DOI 10.1007/s11103-005-2226-y), barley, (Kristensen et al., Plant Physiology, June 1999, Vol. 120, pp. 501-512); orange trees (“Gene expression in Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck following infection with the bacterial pathogen Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus causing Huanglongbing in Florida” Albrecht et al., Plant Science, Volume 175, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 291-306); wheat (poster presentation: “Cloning and Transcriptional Profiling of a Dirigent-like Gene from Wheat Responding to Hessian Fy Infestation”, C. Williams, Poster PO910, Plant and Animal Genome 20); and pea (“Transgenic canola lines expressing pea defense gene DRR206 have resistance to aggressive blackleg isolates and to Rhizoctonia solanill”, Wang and Fristensky, Molecular Breeding Volume 8, Number 3 (2001), 263-271, DOI: 10.1023/A:1013706400168). Thus, dirigents have been implicated in pathogen response in many plants, and this response has been shown for a number of different pathogens, including but not limited to fungi, bacteria, insects and nematodes.
The identification and use of dirigents is important to plant husbandry and crop production, particularly for commercial crop production in agronomy and horticulture.